When I was on the street Cops were judged by the “reasonableness” standard. Basically; if given the same set of facts and circumstances what would a reasonable and prudent officer do. As I look back this probably was a pretty fair way of judging an officer’s performance in critical situations. Unfortunately, over the last decade it appears that the standard for what a “reasonable” officer should do is no longer very reasonable, and in my mind WE THE PEOPLE are to blame.
Wikipedia defines Operant Conditioning as “a learning process in which behavior is sensitive to, or controlled by, its consequences.” This is exactly what has happened in our society. When I heard the prosecutor say that “we can’t second guess police officers” I was stunned. When as a society did we get to the point where we don’t question our government? The prosecutors statement struck me as ridiculous and un-American, but the more I thought about it the more it made perfect sense. That prosecutors statement speaks to the primary issue in policing today, operant conditioning. The public has been conditioned to expect a certain amount of brutality and death in the interest of maintaining our safety while law enforcement has been conditioned to expect immunity from prosecution. It is not the police officers with the problem, it is the prosecutors. Police are acting like this because they have been rewarded for doing it this way.
If you were to take an anonymous poll of law enforcement asking them to honestly list their top fears in their job the top 3 would probably look like this:
#1 Going to prison
#2 Getting sued
#3 Getting killed.
In that order. The reality is that most police officers actually fear prison more than they fear being shot in the line of duty. That is a trade secret that most people outside of the police world don’t know but cops and prosecutors do. Those same Prosecutors depend on police officers to funnel them cases. Local prosecutors are also elected officials. If cops begin to think that prosecutors are not “playing for the team” they can make life very interesting for the DA’s office and directly effect their political career. To a large degree that is why officers are never indicted.
The failure to indict Officer Tim Loehmann in the shooting death of Tamir Rice is what we have all come to expect with incidents like this. The grand jury is a complete joke, and the whole process is just Kabuki theater at this point. The reaction outside of law enforcement has generally followed the same script, people who already distrust the police are horrified, and the people that have a vested interest in maintaining police authority just go on with their lives and rationalize that because there was no indictment then this shooting was justified. Its pretty absurd how “normal” this whole exercise has become. For those who say that these killings are the result of a violent society or kids who don’t listen and have no respect for authority are simply blame shifting. Police Officers are not paid to kill people who are non-compliant, they are paid to have the good judgment, training and guts to NOT kill everybody that is non-compliant or threatening. So I’m not going to pretend like I can understand the “both sides” argument here. For me there are no two sides to this. This officer screwed up and he should have been indicted. Plain and simple.
Loehmann was not indicted because we have allowed this narrative to persist that police officers do a job that nobody else wants to do so we cant hold them accountable. This continues to happen because we have put law enforcement on a pedestal. We have been told that officers are constantly under attack by the criminals and citizens, and stymied by archaic rules and regulation. “Just let them do their jobs”, is a common refrain. We are told that we must give them a pass when they make “mistakes” because without them the very fabric of our society would disintegrate and the criminals would run the world. Wrong. Police Officers are only doing what we allow them to do. Yes, the job is dangerous and stressful but there is no data that supports the contention that Police are under attack and accountability somehow keeps them from being effective at their jobs. That is patently false. Refusing to hold police officers accountable is bad for the profession and bad for society. Just look at the behavior of the police unions in St Louis, NY and Cleveland. Its embarrassing. They aren’t helping police officers out by throwing tantrums and defending bad police work, they are making the job HARDER for officers everywhere. These union reps and media bloviators who defend police officers at all costs don’t have to work in these communities and deal with the blowback from their actions. They don’t take the risks and don’t understand how destructive their message is. But it is the prosecutors (that we elect) that enable bad policing who are the worst offenders of all. People like Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty and St Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCollough are not just cowards, they are oath breakers. They are blatantly forsaking their sworn duty as public servants to protect cops at all cost and this is the primary factor in bad police behavior.
When I look at this incident I can see the glaring problems with how this officer’s own actions led to this tragedy. Let me repeat that. Like Officer Darren Wilson in Furgeson MO, this officer created the situation that led directly to the death of Tamir Rice. From the location of his vehicle when he arrived on the call, to his lack of verbal commands, and his overall behavior on this call, Officer Loehmann was just flat out bad at his job. This is not surprising considering that this same police officer couldn’t even make it out of field training without getting fired. During firearms qualification in the academy Loehmann was described as being highly emotional and distracted. His termination papers from the Independence police department specifically stated that "He could not follow simple directions, could not communicate clear thoughts nor recollections, and his handgun performance was dismal," Deputy Chief Jim Polak of the Independence police concluded that "I do not believe time, nor training, will be able to change or correct the deficiencies." Loehmann’s personnel file also reveals that he was caught lying and signed a statement to this affect. Believe it or not in law enforcement lying is a fireable offense. Folks, “truthfulness” is what they put in your file when you are headed out of the door, and it usually makes you un-hirable for any other police work.
For those of you who have never been in law enforcement It’s difficult for me to relay just how rare it is for an officer to be let go like this. Very few agencies would put an applicant through mandated training and then find a way to fire them. Particularly a smaller agency. Doing background and vetting applicants takes resources and man hours. Academy training is expensive and more often than not the agency pays the trainee a salary while they are paying for the academy. So It just doesn’t happen that much. Loehmann’s training officer specifically said that he shouldn’t have a gun so he NEVER should have been allowed to be a police officer anywhere. How can a man who is deemed unfit for the job at a 30 man police department be given the same job by an agency of over 1300? Why would a man who “cried every night” while in the police academy suddenly decide that he wants to go to work for the Cleveland Police Department? His own father said that he left the Independence police department because “wanted more action”. This is the man who shot Tamir Rice. This is the man that the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty deemed reasonable.
If we truly want to improve police behavior, we can either change the way that prosecutors do their jobs or eliminate them from the oversight process completely. Since it seems that the constitution no longer applies when it comes to the use of force by police officers, then maybe its time to consider scrapping the grand jury system entirely. If police officers act as if citizens no longer have 4th, 5th, and 6th amendment rights then perhaps we should reconsider if police officers should be afforded those rights as well. Maybe a tribunal system with judges set up like the FISA courts would work. I admit that I don’t exactly know, but whatever the solution is we have to come to grips with the fact that we created this monster, now we have to be willing to fix it.
